Friday, 17 January 2014

A
document obtained by The Associated Press on Friday shows Pope Benedict
XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years for molesting
children.
The statistics for 2011-12 show a dramatic
increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican
first provided details on the number of priests who have been
defrocked. Prior to that, it had only publicly revealed the number of
alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received.
The document was
prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting to help the Holy See
defend itself before a U.N. committee this week in Geneva.
Archbishop
Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's U.N. ambassador in Geneva, referred to
just one of the statistics in the course of eight hours of oftentimes
pointed criticism and questioning from the U.N. human rights committee.

The statistics were compiled from the
Vatican's own annual reports about the activities of its various
offices, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which
handles sex abuse cases. Although public, the annual reports are not
readily available or sold outside Rome and are usually found in Vatican
offices or Catholic university libraries.
An AP review of the
reference books shows a remarkable evolution in the Holy See's in-house
procedures to discipline pedophiles since 2001, when the Vatican ordered
bishops to send cases of all credibly accused priests to Rome for
review.
Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took action after
determining that bishops around the world weren't following church law
to put accused clerics on trial in church tribunals. Bishops routinely
moved problem priests from parish to parish rather than subject them to
canonical trials — or turn them into police.
For centuries, the
church has had its own in-house procedures to deal with priests who
sexually abuse children. One of the chief accusations from victims is
that bishops put the church's own procedures ahead of civil law
enforcement by often suggesting victims not go to police and keep
accusations quiet while they are dealt with internally.
The
maximum penalty for a priest convicted by a church tribunal is
essentially losing his job: being defrocked, or removed from the
clerical state. There are no jail terms and nothing to prevent an
offender from raping again.
According to the 2001 norms Ratzinger
pushed through, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reviews
each case sent to Rome and then instructs bishops how to proceed, either
by launching an administrative process against the priest if the
evidence is overwhelming or a church trial. At every step of the way the
priest is allowed to defend himself.
The Congregation started
reporting numbers only in 2005, which is where Tomasi's spreadsheet
starts off. U.N. officials said Friday that the committee has not
received the document.READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/56937.html